Heartland Newspaper Boosts Online Senate Campaign Finance Disclosure

Senate Rules Committee to Mark-Up Bill on March 28th

In her column today in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal Gazette
yesterday, veteran Washington correspondent Sylvia A. Smith says
"things are looking up" for legislation Senators requiring Senators to
disclose their campaign finances electronically, as all other federal
candidates have since 2001. Through timely online disclosure, "Senators
might finally admit that voters have a right to know who’s paying for
their election campaigns."

Under its new Chairman, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration plans to mark-up
a long-delayed bill, co-sponsored by 31 bipartisan Senators, next week. Smith observes that the biggest threat to the
legislation is the possibility of a Senator trying to amend it to include other, controversial campaign finance provisions.
"As much as other changes in law deserve debate and perhaps adoption," Smith remarks, "This is not the time." Rather,
"It is time for the Senate to straggle into the 21st century, lose its sense of entitlement and reverse its disdain
for transparency."

The article follows.
Journal Gazette (IN)Posted on Sun, Mar. 18, 2007

Ease way for senators' finances online
By Sylvia A. Smith

WASHINGTON - Every once in a while my inner optimist bludgeons my cynical, pessimistic self into submission and sends up
a shout of hallelujah.

It's happening again, perhaps prematurely. But there it is: Senators might finally admit that voters have a right to
know who's paying for their election campaigns.

Shocking though it is, the Senate has a built-in delay system that blocks voters from seeing which moneybags are
helping a Senate campaign. Is the candidate getting most of his money from the pharmaceutical industry? Is she
largely financed from rich people who live in another state? Are the state's largest businesses giving him a pass?
Is her campaign being fueled with small-dollar donors or big-cash givers?

None of these things might be a deal-breaker for a voter. But they help form a picture of the candidates on the ballot,
and voters have a right to know.

For the past seven years, House candidates, political action committees, political parties and presidential candidates
have been required to file their periodic campaign reports electronically.

For each of these candidates and groups, Congress has voted to require
e-filing. Within minutes of the campaign treasurer pushing the "send"
button to file a report with the Federal Election Commission, anyone
who wants to see that report online can do so.

The Senate has voted to require e-filing of these other candidates and groups. But for themselves? Perish the thought.

Senate candidates file their reports in paper with the Secretary of the Senate.

Here's how it works: A Senate campaign keeps track of its donations and expenses on a database. After all, no modern
campaign runs a multimillion-dollar operation on the backside of an envelope. When it's time to file a disclosure report,
the campaign has to print the material; a House campaign can just send it electronically. The printed reports often run
to hundreds of pages.

The report then must be delivered to the Secretary of the Senate's office on Capitol Hill.

The secretary's staff scans the pages into a computer and then
transmits them electronically to the Federal Election Commission a few
blocks away. Because the reports are in an incompatible format, the FEC
must print them again and hire typists to put the material into an
electronic database so the information can finally be made public
online.

In other words, a Senate campaign keeps its financial
information in an electronic database but must print it out. The
Secretary of the Senate turns the print back into electronic. The FEC
turns the electronic material into print and then back into electronic
before the public can see it online.

All this can take months (and hundreds of thousands of
dollars). But senators aren't interested in efficiency or transparency.
They are interested in self-protection.

Sometimes opposing campaigns use campaign donation information
to raise a stink - as when a candidate accepts money from someone who
turned out to be a scum bag, such as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff
or Enron's Kenneth Lay. If that information isn't available during the
thick of a campaign, it can't be used.

It's appropriate to note that Sen. Richard Lugar expresses his
exasperation with this situation by filing his campaign reports both
ways: in paper as the law requires and electronically as common sense
dictates. Sen. Evan Bayh, I'm sorry to say, doesn't follow Lugar's
lead.

That may change.

Legislation to update this antiquated process looks like it
might get to the Senate floor this year. In past years, the chairman of
the Rules Committee has refused to give the bill a hearing, and it was
widely thought that Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky,
had a secret "hold" on the bill. (Under Senate procedures, a senator
can block a piece of legislation from being discussed on the Senate
floor and can do so secretly.)

Under Democratic control of the Senate, things are looking up.
The new chairwoman of the Rules Committee conducted a hearing last week
and said she supports the bill. And advocates say they think McConnell
may not interfere this year.

The biggest threat to the legislation is the possibility of a
senator trying to amend it to include other campaign finance
provisions. Many of them are controversial (such as eliminating
donation limits or expanding the public financing of presidential
elections) and would torpedo the e-filing bill.

As much as other changes in campaign law deserve debate and perhaps adoption, this is not the time.

It is time for the Senate to straggle into the 21st century,
lose its sense of entitlement and reverse its disdain for transparency.

Hoosiers don't influence the decisions of other states'
lawmakers, but they certainly have some sway with their own. Lugar
earned a pat on the back for his voluntary e-filing and support of the
legislation, S. 223. Bayh needs a kick in the patootie for neither
endorsing the bill nor directing his campaign staff to file
contribution-and-expense reports electronically even before he's
required to by law.